Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/08/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Last year I spent around 5 months committing to B&W with my D700. I rigged it so its what I saw in my monitor on the back of the camera. I think I did so by having a monochrome jpeg be shot but also a normal RAW. When they popped up on my computer monitor the Raw files would be black and white momentary but would convert in a few moments to color. I rigged up a thing where I'd select them all hit a key and they'd go back to the monochrome what I saw in the back of my camera. Often with a not so subtle color toning cool or warm or some odd thing. Green even. Most of these images when I got to them a year later I went with color versions of them. And threw away the old monocrome .psd Photoshop files. But those files were washed out looking as I did them with my macbook pro screen. Now that I'm working with a NEC bigger and easier to calibrate screen my images are much more viable. They have blacks. I spent a few years making washed out images with no blacks. I wish you guys woulda told me! I had one macro so they'd all be a cool black another for warm. And I'd go in phases heading out to shoot a bunch of cool or warm images. Don't know if the new Leica Monochrom has that or not but for me it would be a most welcome addition to my workflo to put it as inanely as possible. I was a black and white darkroom person for many decades. Thursday nights were generally all nighter darkroom nights for Friday print deadlines. But I always had access to a color rental darkroom where I'd make contact sheets from negs I'd get back in 30 minutes and make prints with the same dodging and burning and easel as my black and white. Same el Nikkor lens too. So I had no qualms about color. As I did more promotional photography than magazine work shot was more color neg than transparency. But I was able to print the slides too either with the use of an internet which I'd help make or direct positive in the same lab. I never found color to be an artistic compromise. Though my gallery showings were mainly from my own darkroom. Mark William Rabiner Photography http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/ > From: Gerry Walden <gerry.walden at me.com> > Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> > Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2012 06:54:11 +0100 > To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> > Subject: Re: [Leica] SHOOTING B&W? - HENNING > > I agree with you Henning, and for a long time I had trouble getting my head > around things. It is all to do with that lovely word 'previsualisation'. > When > we first see an image we previsualise how it will look as a print and make > a > split-second decision on whether it will be in b&w or colour. We then shoot > accordingly but when it pops up on the screen we have to make that decision > all over again and very often the decision goes in the opposite direction > to > our original thought so we end up with a mediocre colour image because we > shot > it as b&w (or occasionally the other way around). > > I have finally managed to get my head around this (I think!) but it now > occurs > to me that one possibility, if the camera will allow, is to shoot raw+jpeg > but > set the jpeg to b&w in your menu. That way you can just look at the jpegs > in > the first instance by selecting only them in a program like Lightroom etc. > > Just my thoughts, > > Gerry > > Gerry Walden > +44 (0)23 8046 3076 or > +44 (0)797 287 7932 > www.gwpics.com > > On 28 Aug 2012, at 23:11, Henning Wulff <henningw at archiphoto.com> wrote: > >> I find it rather hard to shoot B&W with the regular flavour (colour) >> digital >> cameras. No matter how I think in B&W, when I chimp I still see colour, >> unless I shoot in jpeg and I'm not going down that route. If I see the LCD >> with a colour image and start getting that in my head, I have trouble >> taking >> the next picture for B&W, especially if its just a slight variation on the >> first. >> >> The best I can do with a regular camera is with the M8 or M9; there I can >> just shoot, turn off the LCD and not chimp and I see through the >> viewfinder >> what I would see with any M camera loaded with B&W camera I ever had. So >> right now I shoot colour with the M9 and B&W with the M8; I can get my >> mind >> around that. Also, since I've always had trouble really getting my mind >> around shooting colour and B&W on the same day, I usually only take one or >> the other. >> >> When I was shooting a lot of 4x5 for assignments, clients would sometimes >> ask >> me to shoot both colour and B&W for them, and I'd have to ask which was >> the >> more important? Then I'd get into that frame of mind and bring back a good >> set of the primary type and a not so good set of the other. If it was >> medium >> format stuff I'd usually try to shoot one type first and then come back >> the >> next day for the other, if the budget allowed for it and everything else >> cooperated. Just having two cameras loaded with different film didn't give >> optimum results for one or the other. >> >> I'm extremely tempted by the MM, and if the M10 wouldn't be announced in a >> month I'd probably order an MM. But I'll wait and see. >> >> Henning >> >> >> On 2012-08-27, at 2:46 PM, Tina Manley wrote: >> >>> I am getting the MM for the new sensor with higher ISO performance and >>> better resolution. I will carry two cameras, the M9 for color and the MM >>> for B&W, just like I did with film. I don't see how that will hamper my >>> success as a B&W photographer. >>> >>> Tina >>> >>> On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 5:20 PM, Gerry Walden <gerry.walden at me.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> For me one of the most useful attributes of the new digital realm most >>>> of >>>> us move in is that we have a black and white camera and a colour camera >>>> built into one. What is more, we have every speed of film plus some at >>>> our >>>> disposal every time we put that camera to our eye. i do not need a b&w >>>> camera and a colour camera. I have them both in a single unit and can >>>> use >>>> them accordingly. If you continue thinking of b&w as a 'spin-off' of the >>>> colour digital camera you have slung around your neck you will never be >>>> a >>>> successful b&w photographer. It would be like owning a car and only ever >>>> using one of its gears. >>>> >>>> Gerry >>>> >>>> Gerry Walden >>>> +44 (0)23 8046 3076 or >>>> +44 (0)797 287 7932 >>>> www.gwpics.com >>>> >>>> On 27 Aug 2012, at 21:54, George Lottermoser <imagist3 at mac.com> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Aug 27, 2012, at 1:28 PM, tedgrant at shaw.ca wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> And they look quite good! Occasionally it's nice to feel... "Well that >>>> kinda looks like I still have the touch!" And smile inwardly! :-) >>>>> >>>>> You have worked long enough >>>>> and hard enough >>>>> to have the soul of a photographer >>>>> firmly and permanently installed. >>>>> Ain't never ever go'n away. >>>>> >>>>> Regards, >>>>> George Lottermoser >>>>> george at imagist.com >>>>> http://www.imagist.com >>>>> http://www.imagist.com/blog >>>>> http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Leica Users Group. >>>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Leica Users Group. >>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Tina Manley, ASMP >>> www.tinamanley.com >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Leica Users Group. >>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >>> >> >> >> Henning Wulff >> henningw at archiphoto.com >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information